The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1887-02-23
WHAT A WOMAN SHE IS.
A TALK WITH ONE WHO KNOWS
THE STRANGE LOUISE MICHEL.

The name of Charles Francois Thibaudeau,
a young French artist given to painting sad
eyed peasants, is not altogether unknown In
this country. He is a wild-haired young fell
low of the Gautier type--a genius given up TO
medieval neckerchiefsa and pre-Raphaehte col
lars. But he knows every One-artlstS. play
ers, Ioafers, students, demagogues, cocottes-
in fact, he knows Louise Michel. LOating one
evening in one of the coy rooms of the Eden
theatre-where poor little Van Zandt was
Kissed into tears-he grew reminiscent.
"Dear boy, what woman, what woman"
he said musingly, watching the winlIng bub-
bles in his glass. Il would give every hair IN
my head to paint her-every hair. 4es, dear
boy, and forswear wigs to boot VI hat
woman
NThe first time [ saw her, you say? OUT,
what devils day it wasl 1t was two, three
years ago-a lifetime ago was painting
my great"
"Certainly, but Louise?7
"She lived with her mother then, he went
on, "in one of the suburbs-La Chapelle
They had bit of a room on the fourth floor
of a house in the Rue du Polonceau, near the
dainty quarter, Goutte dor. There was
only one room, think A stove on one side,
a sideboard on the other, a lickety table in
the middle. a few stOlid chairs scattered
about, made up the furniture Poverty
stricken but clean-very. Imagine Louise
sweeping, busting, or nonsense! Imagine the
Maid of Arc trotting a baby on her knee!
1t was doubtless the good mothers doing.
She sat by the Window sturdy old peasant
wrinllled and gray, knitting stockings or
something of the sort.
HER PERSONAL APPEARANCE.
"Louise sat by the table, writing furiously,
splattering ink and talking to herself. OF
: II aJI Hal,a ctc
when came in. What woman! Wouldn't
she make a great model for that old vixen
Macbeth, or that she-devil, Corday! Perhaps
not She was made for a woman, so let her
pass for such, but she looks little enough like
one. Her head is large; the face long and
copper coOred, the eyes nervOus-what a
woman Her cheek bones are high and
prominent, like a ScOtchman's, and her chin
small and sharp. Her hair cut short and
parted in the middle tumbles around her ears
and neck in grayish curls. 4 bit of q mus
tache-beg pardon of the sex-shadOws her
upper lip. Can you see her? Standing up,
grasping roll of papers, clad all IL black
and tapping a large, wellbOoted foot on the
floor Put a mole on her forehead and you
have the picture complete. Mon Dieu, what
a woman! Vulgar, ObtIy@ive, hard, but
woman with the devils own viii in her gray
eyes, and a woman OF br,,i,I:' or something
that answers a. we'll
Thibaudcau fell to tWirling his wine glass
and musn@ over the picture he had drawn.
There was nothing startling in the descrip-
ton What else could Louise Michel look
like? One doesn't gather figs from thistles
She was born in 1890 in a chateau N the De-
partment Hautc- Marine Dame Scandal had
a merry time at her birth Her father was
Comtc de Broncourt and her mother was
nothing III particular. She grew up in the
chateau; an odd sort of child, laughed at
by the servants, kissed by the count and
cuffed by the countess. She played the piano.
sang, made verses. She must have been
devout little thing in those days. Her ideal
was that magnificent turncoat, Victor Hugo
who just then was posing as q Royalist and
Catholic. She wrote mystic verses echoing
his aristocratic piety.
When she was 20 the countess died, and a
year later the count followed her to the
grave, leaving Louise a legacy of 10000
francs or so.
Her mother suggested matrimony, but She
on the other hand, was anxious to get her to
Nunnery. OF course q discussion arose, and
it lasted for weeks. In the meantime this
awkward, honely young woman was doing
deal of thinking. One morning she woke uD
an atheist, and the nunnery question was set
tied forever. But she was a poet, or thought
herself one, which is every whit as good, and,
of course, must needs be q martyr. But how
and where? In Paris, of course, and III any
way that turned up. First of all she opened
a school 1t is one way of being mar
tyr. The school was doubtless a good one
but as there came no pupils it was discontin-
ued. Anyway it revolted her. A scion of
the house Of De BroncOurt teach SCHOOL, The
idea is ridiculous. And yet she was only a
sham De Broncourt She felt this keenly,
and hated the family, the class to which it
belonged, the whole world, for the wrong
that had been done her
A RED-CAPPED REvOLUTIONAIRE.
She was an Outcast, a pariah-well, so be
it: she would join hands with her fellows,
love and hate with them, fight their battles
In short she plunged into the social democ-
racy. The devOut aristOcrat of year before
was a red-capped revOlutionaire. She chose
a lucky time. The opposition to the empire
was intensely bitter She organized clubs for
men, for women, for gamins. She wrote
red articles, made red speeches, and was
famous. She was the one man amid a crowd
of masculine women. She outran her social
istic colleagues, Clemenceau and Louis Blanc,
and even Rochefort and Franquet grew too
pacific for her. Before long she was an An
archist, bitter, daring and INSCRIPTIONS.
One sees quite a change between this Louise
Michel and the pious girl who sat rhyming
III the big chateau near AudeloncOurt, but
the growth was entirely natural The Comte
de Boncourts peccadillo was not such a laugh
able little thing after all.
But it is shame to leave NJ. Oh. Francois
Thibaudeau musing all this time over wine
glass, and an empty one at that.
'Ah, well, what did she say!"
"What do the falls of Niagara sayl OF
course, dear boy, she said sshe was glad to
see me, and then-the revolution! The old
story-death to the rule of the individual,
freedom as common as air-and the red flag
over all And when does all this come? All,
the opportunity! When Paris is ringed by
second siege-meets a second Sedan; when
nihilism flames out in Russia; when war
or pestilence arises; when anything hap
pens to sound the call for the rising of the
army of the reds. And then? Fire-dyna-
mite-destruction And then! The rule of
the downtrodden and universal happiness.
Mon Dieu, what woman"
"She has the heart of tigress."
"H'm, dye think so, my friend!' the painter